


Marked

by magpiespirit



Series: Partners in Time [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Biting, Both of Them Are Unsettling, Cherub Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crawly - Freeform, Gen, Gratuitous Cherry-Picking, Intense, M/M, Possessiveness, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-11-22 14:23:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20875682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magpiespirit/pseuds/magpiespirit
Summary: In a budding world, Crawly struggles to classify what it means when the stars shine down so perfectly on these coldest of nights, and in the absence of available descriptors, decides that Aziraphale is simplyhis.





	Marked

**Author's Note:**

> Watch out for some lore that isn't part of any scriptural canon. Whether it's the truth or just the party line is for you to decide.

“Good night for it,” he says quietly, watching the sand shift below his feet. Every night is a good night for watching the stars; Crawly will gladly lie back and look up the whole time, his gaze on the creations he helped bring into existence on the architectural team. He will claim them as his, even if he was only a minor part of the team, because his talent transcended his original design. Tonight, though, there is very little moon, so they look even more spectacular. The angel in front of him shifts, but does not acknowledge him, even though he knows he must _ reek _of pride.

He’s quite fond of pride. He fell for it, after all — for daring to presume to know better than God about Her own designs, for his cleverly-worded bad-faith questions. Hubris and vainglory, _ She _ said, but honestly, he’ll only say that if someone already knows the line; he still prefers to think of it as creative thinking. If he can’t ever be forgiven, why _ not _ take credit for his greatest accomplishments, even if he doesn’t agree?

(As the years fade, as the tender feeling of betrayal heals over and turns to scar tissue, the story will change. Crowley will be the tragic hero of his own tale, just a soul-spark in the wrong place at the wrong time who got thrown out for keeping bad company and being too curious. Now, though, when it’s still new and raw and bleeding, Crawly is glad to be bad. Delights in demonhood. Revels in rebellion. Hopes he’s evil enough to get special attention from Satan someday, worries he never will be.)

Nights in the newborn world are still freezing after just under a century, and two are warmer — and safer — than one. Crawly immediately regretted discorporating his adversary, and he’s glad to have the angel back; freezing to death would be an embarrassing way to go. Even to each other, they don’t speak of this _ arrangement _they’ve had for the past little while; they shelter together, watching over the encampment of humans (until the morning, when they no longer know each other). The angel, Aziraphale, allows Crawly to curl into his side while they both lie together beneath their inefficient robes. Sometimes Aziraphale’s deft, dark fingers thread through Crawly’s long hair, which he likes. Sometimes Aziraphale hums bars from Heavenly songs, which he hates. Sometimes Crawly thinks about turning back into a snake and biting the angel, injecting the poison and watching him discorporate bit by bit, but he never does. Only, you see, because he doesn’t like the thought of getting stuck that way.

Tonight he slithers into a ready and willing embrace and admires the angel’s face. This is Aziraphale’s third incorporation, having lost the last one to Crawly’s tricks about a decade prior (and the first one to incorrectly accessing his powers in his half-human form, only two weeks after the fall of Eden), and it’s a nice one. His nose is rounded at the tip and curved at the bridge; his cheeks aren’t hollow like Crawly’s, but instead are soft and round like his shoulders and hips. His deep eye sockets make you _ make eye contact _when he speaks. Everything’s in shadow now, but earlier today, he saw that his skin is a warm blend of colors, halfway between Eve and desert sand, and his eyes…

Aziraphale’s eyes never change. Nor does his hair, even though everyone else’s needs cutting to stay the same for so long. Marks of an angel, Crawly assumes. The hair is easy enough to understand; it matches the glow of his feathers, and the more unmanageable bits might even be mistaken for down. The eyes, though, are hard to pin. Sometimes they are an otherworldly, ethereal blue. Mostly, they try to be brown, or if they can’t manage it, greenish-blue, or some other kind of bluish-brown. Under the starlight, they’re as dark and quiet as anything else in this godforsaken (perhaps even truly God-Forsaken) desert.

Crawly loves seeing his stars in the angel’s eyes. There’s something beautifully blasphemous about it — God may own him during the day, but at night, he wears Crawly’s mark instead. Even if the Almighty Herself should wither to wasting, he shall never be his own as long as there are stars in the sky. He couldn’t make Aziraphale agree with him up on the garden wall — couldn’t tempt him to wonder aloud what was so bad about Knowing — but for some reason, Aziraphale tolerates him, even though he _ must _know what Crawly tried to do.

“You’re bigger this time,” he observes. Digs a long, claw-like fingernail into the angel’s firm waist, hard enough to draw blood from a human, but probably just hard enough to be an annoyance to an occult thing like Aziraphale. He misses the softness of the prior incorporations.

“Yes, well.” The angel doesn’t even blink, just lets the starlight drop into his form’s ocular fluids. Such an awkward creature, always either too still or sketching in the air with his hands, moving just a touch too stiffly to pass as human. “These forms are so restricting. And delicate. They don’t even let more than one pair of wings out without ripping at the seams! The roomier models are preferable. I thought bigger might be better.”

Oh — interesting. _ Dangerous. _ Delicious. More than one pair of wings? What did Aziraphale do to get himself banished to a wasteland like this? Delicately, Crawly begins to pet the angel’s belly and says, “One pair? But I thought you were a Principality. You should only _ have _the one pair.”

“Your side wreaked enough havoc that a redistribution was required,” Aziraphale says sharply, “and I volunteered. There’s no need for a mangled Cherub at God’s side now that the war is over and Eden is hidden forever.”

Crawly files this away for later. What a silly angel, giving away secrets. That word — _ mangled — _is full of Implications. War hero? Coward? Unfortunate casualty of the metaphysical schism that sent a third of the Host crashing through dimensions to an unfinished landscape full of sulphur and fire? He’ll find out what happened and hold it in reserve. In a fair fight, he’s never been able to beat Aziraphale, but he knows how to wield secrets and truths like weapons. You don’t have to fight someone to hurt them.

Besides, who fights fair? Only idiots. Prestige in Hell is gained through backstabbing and subterfuge, not _ honor. _

He slots one leg through both of Aziraphale’s, rubbing his smooth, scaly foot along the calves. Aziraphale shudders from the temperature and grips Crawly in arms and hands that are much stronger than they look. Their combined clothing isn’t much protection from the cold, but it’s something. This feels...lazy, almost. Like Crawly could do that thing humans do, where their eyes close and their little brains shut down and anyone could just walk in and hurt them. He could never do that — sleep, that’s what it’s called — with his adversary around poised to kill at dawn, so he decides to keep the conversation going. “It’s your fault, you know. They didn’t have to die. Nobody had to die at all. You lot could have just stepped aside and let the revolution run its course.”

“And let Lucifer kill the Almighty? I think not,” says the angel, sounding _ amused, _of all things.

“He wouldn’t have. He was just going to chain Her up. I saw the schematics when nobody was looking. It was all very civil, really. ‘S what they called it, a civil war — was your side made it uncivil with all the...fighting stuff. And anyway, if She really wanted to stay in power so badly, why did She make you all fight for Her? Isn’t She omnipotent or omnipresent or whatever omni lets Her create a whole Host of subservient little creatures to do Her bidding?” 

Aziraphale’s tone makes a downturn toward denigration in his reply. “Don’t you know anything? Did the great fall strip away your memories as well as your Divinity, or are you just stupid? God made us. If She dies, we die. In return, She can’t unmake us or She’ll unravel the parts of Her we’re connected to. Only an angel can kill another angel; God is powerless against us in accordance with Her own decree. _ I _would never let anyone touch Her, least of all a rabble-rouser like the Morningstar.”

“How noble of you,” Crawly drawls, trying to determine what the pain in his chest is. It’s not entirely unpleasant, a very hot and wet pain that makes him want to burrow under Aziraphale and hide there until the sun rises and they’re enemies once more. 

“Not particularly. Obedience is not noble. I did my duty to the Lord, as you should have. You cannot tempt me into pride, demon.”

_ Temptation, _ he thinks. In the time they’ve known each other, aside from their meeting atop the wall, he hasn’t actually tried to tempt Aziraphale. This is just conversation, harsh jabs at each other that are soft, tender caresses in comparison to the conversations in Hell. “Trust me, _ angel. _If I were tempting you, you wouldn’t know it.”

Temptation is quiet. It’s a whisper, a suggestion, an observation that the thing you want to do really ought to be done. Why bother playing the long game, goes the temptation, if you can get what you want right now? Why bother trying to be good for a harsh mistress who won’t even show Herself when you can have immediate pleasure? Do the thing you already want to do. Indulge in the forbidden thing you ache for. It will be all right. Nobody will find out anyway.

What could Crawly tempt the angel into doing, exactly? What forbidden desires could Aziraphale possibly have? Crawly, himself, has plenty. He wants to paint Aziraphale in starlight so that God will never look upon him again. He wants to burn the encampment, not to kill the humans, but to watch them panic. He wants to march straight up to God and tell Her that Satan is still right. He wants to bite Aziraphale, so he does, nips him in the side where he dug his nails in before.

“What — Crawly, what on _ Earth.” _

“It’s a human thing I saw,” he half-lies. He’s seen humans do it. They usually end up sweaty and leaking after, enveloped by the bittersweet tang of lust, but their kids use it to be cruel to each other. He nips the angel again, right over the first bite, and adds, “They warm each other up like this sometimes.”

Aziraphale makes an offended noise and goes to move away, but Crawly won’t let him go. It’s too cold and he wants to stay in biting range. In retaliation, the angel’s fingers tighten in Crawly’s long hair — the hiss pulled from Crawly’s mouth when Aziraphale’s smallest finger catches on a knot-curl is entirely involuntary and less irritable than it should be — and he pulls Crawly’s head back to stare him in the eye. He’s gorgeous like this, blanketed in starlight and angry, focused on Crawly, only Crawly. At a quiet simmer, he says, “Next time I will bite back, and you won’t like it.”

It’s like a parent talking to a naughty child, but Crawly feels very grown-up things vaguely in the direction of Aziraphale, mostly in the direction of the _ image _of Aziraphale following through. Like animals — fighting over prey, or playing, or mating. Can it be all three? Does it ever work like that? It doesn’t for snakes. Angels don’t do any of those things, and demons don’t really play or fuck, they only fight over who gets to have a go at the fresh human souls. It’s no fun torturing each other, after all. The more demons you piss off, the more you have to watch your back. 

“Thought you didn’t know what I was doing,” he taunts, trying not to think too hard. He manages by watching the stars dance in Aziraphale’s eyes again. 

The angel snips, “I know what _ biting _ is, Crawly, I don’t know why you want to do it to _ me. _It’s not completely safe out here, and it’s freezing. You’ll be in danger if I leave you here alone. Isn’t that the point of...this?”

_ Don’t leave, _ he thinks, _ just keep looking at me. _

It’s strange.

He doesn’t like it.

He can’t stop thinking it.

“I’m a serpent. There are some ingrained things…”

“Don’t lie to me. I know serpents. They only bite prey, or to protect themselves. Which is it, Crawly? Do you want to kill me, or do you think I’m going to hurt you?”

He laughs a little and licks Aziraphale’s arm with a forked tongue, just because it’s there. The angel lets his hair go and the demon isn’t sure why that’s not good, but it isn’t. Spitefully, he uses Aziraphale’s old words against him, “I know you’re going to hurt me. You’re an angel. That’s what you do.”

“Yes, I suppose I must, since you insist on making trouble for the people I’m tasked with protecting. Then again...you _ could _ just step aside and let me run my course. Any harm done to you in a fight over human souls is _ your fault.” _

(Because Aziraphale might favor softness, but he’s not very nice. Crawly has always known this, even in Eden. The angel might have sheltered an unknown demon from the first rain, but only after being mean about what they fundamentally are beneath their human flesh.)

“I won’t bite again,” Crawly promises like only a demon can — that is, with no incentive to follow through. The word of a demon means nothing at all. “But you have to promise me something.”

“I don’t _ have _to do anything.” One beat. Two. Crawly isn’t patient, but he knows how to sense a shift, how to taste curiosity. He has Aziraphale’s attention, just like he wanted. “...What do you want?”

“Look at me. All night, I want you to look at me. Don’t do anything else except look,” he says, “and I won’t bite you anymore.”

“What if I just bite back? Teach you a lesson?”

Of course there was never a real chance the angel would _leave, _not when it’s so cold. Neither of them are completely invulnerable, as much as they’d like to be — though he intends to look into learning how to use his demonic powers to strengthen and enhance his flesh vessel, when he has control over them. Crawly considers this alternative carefully. It’s not such a bad idea. He’s never been bitten before. It could be fun. They could make a game of it, see who can bite harder and better, but it’s not what Crawly _wants. _And what Crawly wants, he should get, because Aziraphale gets Heaven and spiritual connection with the Host and God where Crawly just gets cold empty silence, so this is justice. “There’s nothing about biting that you can teach a serpent, Guardian. Just look at me. Am I so ugly that you can’t bear it?”

“Oh! No, of course not — well, your soul is the ugliest I’ve ever seen, but your form is quite lovely, even if you’ve only got two eyes,” Aziraphale says, turning awkwardly onto his side. It’s the stupidest compliment anyone has ever paid anyone, he’s sure, but he tucks it away in a warm place all the same. He’s proud of having a soul that Aziraphale thinks is ugly, because he chose that; God made him beautiful, and he twisted Her work into something better. Their chests press together. Crawly could turn into a snake and wind himself around the angel and squeeze him to death, if he wanted, watch those starlit eyes burst vessels and grow dim.

“Flatterer,” he says instead, winding three of his human limbs around Aziraphale as best he can, one arm below his neck and both of his legs in a sort of tangle. He takes his free hand and places it on Aziraphale’s cheek, stroking the bone below the angel’s eye, and enjoys being watched. These are his stars, and that means this is his angel, and Aziraphale should be paying attention to only him. All night, every night, forever and ever, until the end of the world. 

And when Hell triumphs over Heaven? It won’t matter that he once belonged to God. Maybe Aziraphale won’t even mind being a special prize, if he can come to like Crawly as much as Crawly likes him.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still not sure if I want to publish the rest of what I've written for this larger universe. We'll see. Things get weirder before they get better, and I'm hesitant to put out content for unhealthy relationships even if the ending is healthy and happy.


End file.
